Ohio News Briefs

0

Boy, 9, is 5th Ohio child to die after flu-related illness

MARION, Ohio (AP) — Health officials say a 9-year-old boy from Marion is the fifth child to die after suffering flu-related illness in Ohio this month.

Relatives say his family initially thought the third-grader was suffering breathing problems related to his asthma. He was rushed to a Columbus hospital, where he died.

Ohio previously reported four flu-related child deaths in recent weeks: a 6-year-old Salem boy and a 7-year-old boy from East Liverpool, both in Columbiana County in eastern Ohio; a 7-year-old girl in Fulton County in northwest Ohio; and a 6-year-old girl in Cuyahoga County.

One child died in Ohio during the previous flu season, which typically lasts from October to May. Six died during that same period between 2014 and 2015.

Ohio House committee considers dropping front license plates

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio motorists wouldn’t be required to have a front license plate on their vehicles under a proposal being considered by a state House committee.

The House Finance Subcommittee on Transportation is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to include the proposed law change in the final version of the state transportation budget.

WCMH-TV in Columbus says Democratic Rep. Alicia Reece has pushed for the change. She says front license plates cost taxpayers more money and serve as an excuse to pull people over.

Reece says that cost Sam DuBose his life. The black motorist was fatally shot in Cincinnati by a white university police officer who had pulled him over for a missing front plate in 2015.

Law enforcement officials argue that front plates are key tools for them.

WWII veteran in Ohio gets Bronze Star, other overdue medals

VAN WERT, Ohio (AP) — A 95-year-old World War II veteran in Ohio has received his combat medals that were mistakenly withheld.

U.S. Rep. Bob Latta presented a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and other decorations to Orval Mullen on Wednesday, his birthday, at an American Legion hall in Van Wert.

Latta says Mullen earned the commendations for heroic actions in combat but never got them because of “a military oversight.” Latta says he learned about that oversight last summer while interviewing Mullen for the Library of Congress Veterans’ History Project and wanted to make sure the error was corrected.

Mullen received nearly a dozen medals or other honors in all.

Columbus shooting after argument leaves man dead, woman hurt

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Authorities in Columbus say a shooting left a man dead and a woman injured.

Police tell WBNS-TV that a man and a woman were arguing inside a house Wednesday night. Officials say the pair then moved to the street and later a yard across the street, where shots were fired.

Officials say both individuals who were arguing were shot and transported to Grant Medical Center.

Police say the man, 36-year-old Lonnie Lambert, was pronounced dead at the hospital. The 49-year-old woman was reported to be in stable condition.

The investigation is ongoing.

Cincinnati facing projected $25M budget shortfall next year

CINCINNATI (AP) — A $25.1 million shortfall has been projected for Cincinnati’s upcoming budget, and the city manager is recommending most departments prepare to make 10 percent budget cuts.

City Manager Harry Black made the recommendations in a memo to the city council. Black also recommends that public safety departments, including police and fire, prepare to make budget cuts of 3 percent.

The city’s current estimated expenses for 2018 are $414.1 million. Estimated revenues total only $389 million, leaving the $25.1 million gap.

Black wrote that the earnings tax isn’t meeting projections. That makes up the main source of the city’s revenue.

Black expects to present the fiscal 2018 budget in May. It would be up to the mayor and city council to make changes before the fiscal year starts July 1.

Ohio court dismisses untried case of alleged rape by teen

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has dismissed the case of an adult identified as a suspect in a rape he allegedly committed as a teenager.

The high court previously agreed to hear the suspect’s challenge of reopening his case. But the court on Wednesday dismissed it without explanation, saying it shouldn’t have been accepted for court review.

The ruling is a victory for defendant Darlell Orr, who was indicted in 2013 for an attack 20 years earlier in Cuyahoga County.

The indictment came after a DNA sample taken when Orr was arrested on a murder charge matched DNA from the unsolved rape of a 14-year-old girl in 1993.

A county judge and a state appeals court previously ruled that laws in place then barred juveniles from being prosecuted as adults.

Ohio county to pay family, settle suit over inmate’s death

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A northern Ohio county will pay $750,000 to the family of a murder suspect who was found unresponsive in jail and later died in 2004.

Officials agreed to the settlement earlier this week with the family of Carlton Benton who investigators said died after being beaten and put in a “sleeper hold” by deputies at the jail in Toledo.

A former Lucas County sheriff’s office employee later was convicted of violating civil rights for leaving Benton in a cell without seeking medical help.

The Blade reports the settlement also calls for the county to pay $500,000 in legal fees and expenses.

Benton was in the jail on aggravated murder charges in the killings of a cousin and his cousin’s wife. His family believes he was innocent of the crimes.

No posts to display